How Unions Can Improve Employment for Its Members - Free Essay

Employers and employees appear to look at employment from very diverse angles. There are ways through which the warring sides may get into an agreement. The answer to this is the presence of unions. The unions have assumed important roles in the employer-employee conversation for many years (Artz & Heywood, 2020). Nonetheless, within the last few years, most elements of the business atmosphere have transformed. With that in consideration, it is vital to comprehend how unions fit within the present business environment, and what functions they have in the contemporary economy.

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Since the Industrial Revolution era, unions have been revered many times for the improvements in working conditions and wages. Most unions were created within the manufacturing and resource organizations, firms working within the steel mills, textile industries, and mines (Artz & Heywood, 2020). With time, nonetheless, the unions have extended into other industries. Many times, unions are often related to the olden economy, which refers to organizations that function in intensively regulated spaces. Presently, a bigger population in the union membership is traced to transportation, utilities, and government (Hatcher, 2017). The number of members in a union and the extent to which they infiltrate the economy differs from one nation to the other. Some governments antagonistically block or control how unions are formed, and others have concentrated their economies within industries which unions have not conventionally been involved.

Unions affect the labor environment in many different ways. The influence of labor unions lies within their two major sources of influence, which are restraining the supply of labor and intensifying the demand for labor (Hatcher, 2017). They have previously been compared to cartels. Using collective bargaining, the unions discuss the wages that employees will receive. The unions demand higher wages compared to the equilibrium pay, but this may reduce the hours that employers demand (Artz & Heywood, 2020). Because an increased rate of wage is equal to reduced work for every dollar, unions encounter challenges when deliberating over higher wages and instead commonly concentrate on growing the labor demand.

There have been notable shifts and unions are no longer adversarial with management in nature. The objective of the unions is to gel and safeguard the rights of the employees. However, these days, the staff at the frontline are not the only ones involved in uniting when unions are considered (Hatcher, 2017). Most of the efficient union representatives enter into partnerships with management to attain mutual objectives.

For instance, in the United States, what has caused the decline in the union existence comprised alterations in the economy, the type of work in the country, and the nature of services that unions provide to their membership. Unions must always transform in significant ways so that they stop declining. There is another practical function for them to participate in the management of organizations, a role that relies on them dropping their conventional function of management adversary and representing employees in participative management (Artz & Heywood, 2020). The unions should make sure that companies are well managed that workers partake in the performance gains that arise, and that the organizations are controlled efficiently. There is sufficient evidence from the literature that unions are changing. The management should take the role of speeding up the change procedure by accommodating the unions as partners and becoming involved in vital industry decisions.

References

Artz, B., & Heywood, J. S. (2020). Unions, Worker Participation and Worker Well-Being (No.705). GLO Discussion Paper.

Hatcher, N. W. (2017). Retention strategies of labor union membership.